Trump

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I have always said, only half jokingly, that you could make millions in the US just by going over there and claiming to be the reincarnated Jesus (or close relative). Some people, especially Conservative Christians will believe absolutely anything once you plant the seed in their minds.

Someone was trying to tell me how much Trump was doing for women the other day. My examples to the contrary we passed off as " believing the media" despite my examples being from Trump's actual policies and words from his own mouth. I told them they were lining up to drink the Kool Aid.

More worrying is the supposedly liberal journalist that was, apparently, completely swayed by Trump's speech to congress - the same speech that was read from an autocue, written by someone else and clearly completely at odds with what we know of the man.

Despite all Trumps faults and gaffes (bucket loads). He still got 29% of the Latino vote and a significant chunk of women voters with over half of all white women voting for him and white women without degrees voting for Trump 2 to 1 compared to Clinton.
Trump offered jobs and make America great again. This is what he will be judged on by the US population rather than his crazier antics.
Also the presidential debates were rerun with actors, but Trump played by a woman and Clinton by a man. Contrary to expectations Trump was more favorable as a woman and Clinton less favorable as a man.
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/march/trump-clinton-debates-gender-reversal.html

So were they leaked by the Trump administration? His 2005 tax returns I mean.Interesting to see that of 25% tax paid, $5.3m was in federal income tax and $31m in the alternative minimum tax (AMT) . The latter of which he called to be eliminated during the 2016 Campaign - a bit strange considering it's projected to raise $37 billion in 2017.

So were they leaked by the Trump administration? His 2005 tax returns I mean.

Interesting to see that of 25% tax paid, $5.3m was in federal income tax and $31m in the alternative minimum tax (AMT), the latter of which he called to be eliminated during the 2016 Campaign -a bit strange considering it's projected to raise $37 billion in 2017.

Let me think!At least burning down the White House would be disaster of a concrete nature, so to speak.Not so sure at the moment.Once there was a saying that talk is cheap? That idea has changed.Verbals and comments made on social media seem to have now gained a level of importance which strikes me as ludicrous. It seems these days that talk really is valued more than action. That's where Trump has set up shop. The land of the gobby and paranoid.All it takes is one 'tweet' and it's the end of the world.

The problems arising from the Trump administration are far more substantial than the shite that comes out of his mouth, or Twitter account. Travel ban, the new health care act, deregulation, social cuts - raise serious practical issues of competence, intent and ideology. These have concrete effects. Not to mention the conflicts of interest, the Russia links, the dishonesty, the rejection of fact and fuelling of confusion and bigotry. It's trivialising to reduce the upset and consternation this causes as a case of bad losers reacting to dumb tweets. That said tweeting accusations of espionage against your predecessor, to pick just the latest example, get a whole lot more serious when they come from the president.

The recent photo op with Merkel and non-handshake. Is it possible that Trump's a bit deaf? There's been a few examples when his reaction to questions or requests seems off-kilter. I've no doubt he's a petulant old sod, but I do wonder if he genuinely can't always hear or mishears and tries to bluster through.

He's still somewhat limited to what he can actually do.Unless annoying and upsetting people is the main issue.He should stop that 'tweeting' nonsense for a start. That's just broadcasting impulses.Anyway, it's Americans who voted him in. Is it really our problem?Only connection I have is via the stock markets. His victory was a plus for me on that score.However, a score indicates a game. Games can be lost, and this one has a few more years to play out.

I fear a lot of the tweeting and excessive tantrum-throwing performances are smoke screens for the real evil that's going on the background.

The destruction that's being writ large upon the planet is awesome in its tragic magnitude! The EPA has been corrupted so much that it now longer has any interest in the environment and it certainly will not be offering any protection any time soon... so basically it's just an "agency". He's disbanding the Chemical Safety Board - so industries will have a free hand to behave exactly as they wish. He's a vociferous climate change denier aims with aims to undo or renege on pollution control agreements. Every time I read an industry newsletter my blood runs cold at the moment.

All these insidious changes are sneaking under the RADAR while the majority of the population are being misdirected by his his ridiculous posturing.

Good point Little Nell.
All the Twitter outrages are just a sideshow, Twitter is nothing more than a platform for the patriotic/politically correct outraged.
I just wish the media would look at policies rather than personalities and trivia like whether or not Trump shook Merkel's hand.

MrWorry, every time they have done that though, they have been faced with a massive shit storm of claims of Fake News so vociferous that there have been people on the streets outside their offices with placards protesting and tweet storms so large that they are frightening... journalists have been threatened, as have their families..... and they have been barred from press conferences, briefings and inteviews... I also really wouldn't be surprised to hear of back door pressure on the publishers via financiers and market makers...

In parallel, Trump has deflected attention by just tweeting another asinine piece of rubbish that has set the hounds off in a different direction... when you actually look at the presidential orders enacted in the first few weeks, a few of which are mentioned above, and there are MANY more really scary ones.. its a rather worrying trend.

I'm here in the USA at the moment and have loads of American friends and as Little Nell says, there is a whole heap of stuff going on quietly in the background that are going to affect a lot of people badly. The CSB cut is bad news, here in Houston there is always refineries exploding, catching fire, people getting killed one way or another; it needs the CBS to keep on top of safety and investigation aspects. Funding for scientific research is getting cut, funding for PBS (public radio which is what I tend to listen to - impartial reporting), funding for a lot of the state parks. Pretty much closing down the whole meals on wheels for the elderly, so apart from the fact their healthcare is increasing, they're also stopping feeding them!! There's many more that I can't think of right now.

The reason they're cutting these budgets?? So they can increase the military and build the bloody wall

The climate has always changed. What is different about the current situation is that the worlds climate has been relatively stable for the past 12,000 years, and ridiculously stable for the past 300 years.It's the predictability of climate on which the world economy relies. Once it goes wonky, all bets are off. It's all about money. There was no ice in the times of the dinosaurs. Then again, the dinosaurs didn't deal in stock market fluctuations.If the mega volcano under Yellowstone goes up, that will cause a real climate change. Donald Trumps tweet won't be much use under three feet of ash.

The climate has always changed. What is different about the current situation is that the worlds climate has been relatively stable for the past 12,000 years, and ridiculously stable for the past 300 years.It's the predictability of climate on which the world economy relies. Once it goes wonky, all bets are off. It's all about money. There was no ice in the times of the dinosaurs. Then again, the dinosaurs didn't deal in stock market fluctuations.If the mega volcano under Yellowstone goes up, that will cause a real climate change. Donald Trumps tweet won't be much use under three feet of ash.

If agreeing with an overwhelming majority of scientists means ignorant then guilty as charged.... I didn't appreciate that to be smart you had to be willing to align with conspiracy theorists, and alt right publications financed by oil barons who have absolutely no vested interest in denying climate change... no none whatseoever... absolutely honestly, none. sigh.

I'm an environmentalist.I've watched as the natural landscape of the UK has been systematically poisoned and changed byall sorts of things - all by the hand of man. I don't much like that.

Climate is bigger - and currently affected by man. But the climate is just a set of conditions and those conditions have changed throughout the history of the planet. For most of that time, humans were not about. Some conditions suit us, some don't.

The climate change panic mongers aren't really concerned with nature at all. They are concerned with their jobs and wages, because a stable climate means safe predictions in the world of business.

So the irony here is the very actions which are affecting climate change are the same actions by which business throughout the world is conducted. Will you give up your car or central heating?That smart phone of yours had ensured a damn great hole has been dug somewhere with all the attendant chemical processes to match. Are you going to give that up?

As for my financial state. That was about personal security, not about living it large. It was a common sense decision made 30 years ago. That was 'if I lived to 100 years of age, how would I pay for it?' And then I worked backwards. And planned for it.

Others just spend their wages as they get them, live for the day and hope.

There's a guy who writes into the local paper refuting man-made climate change. His argument goes that the climate has changed over the life of the planet, and changes now are simply part of this ongoing cycle. He seems to consider that climate scientists don't understand, let alone actually established, that climate is a changing dynamic system. To be fair he does suggest that the "ideological" science community has nefarious reasons for putting about climate change, so why he bothers to contest the science at all when he thinks the whole thing is a conspiracy is a mute point. The science establishes how the climate system works, what affects and influences it, and to what degree. And we have a concesus of agreement on what is happening and what will happen if the current conditions remain or worsen. Take it or leave it, but regurgitating bits of climate science back to climate scientists as evidence they don't understand climate is ridiculous.

I'm not sure I understand your point about financial markets and climate change Ric. On first reading you seem to be suggesting that we can gauge the significance of climate change and climate change predictions by the behaviour of the markets. Economies and market prefer predictable stable conditions, therefore the predicted disruptions of climate change would lead to great market fluctuation and panic. Sort of like a canary down a mine. We don't have great market fluctuation and panic, ergo climate predictions are overstated? Faith in the rationale of the markets "trumps" acceptance of scientific evidence?

As things stand, there isn't a great deal of change in the climate. Chances are, each individual human won't live long enough to notice much difference at current rates.

People will notice man made changes which has caused problems to the Aral sea or the natural flow of rivers such as the Colorado.

The scary thing is the possibility that the planet is at a tipping point. Carbon dioxide is one factor, the oceans and land heating up enough to release a few hundred billion tons of Methane Hydrate another. If that happens, the average global temperature will go up five degrees.

Doesn't sound much but 2 degrees difference is the temp now and that of the last massive ice age. Note that once the average global temperature was 26 degrees as against 14 degrees today.

What I was trying (poorly) to illustrate was that if the climate changed in a sudden catastrophic manner, all the wealth, money, possessions anyone has, won't be of much use.

As long as most if not all the governments of the world work on the principle that so long as people have enough material possessions and synthetic entertainment, they should be happy. The natural world is unlikely to receive the level of importance it should.Even now, humans use the oceans and rivers as toilets and dumping grounds one minute, yet attempt to catch their dinner from them, the next.

It's a problem. To live as we do in comfort means the natural world takes a hit somewhere. Always.

Either we accept there's a price to be paid for living as we do, or else we reduce the numbers of people on the planet to around 0.00001% of what it is right now. I doubt if any wildlife will object.

Seems easier for politicians to claim there is no climate change at all, rather than admit there is but they can't be arsed to deal with it. Someone else's problem - namely in about 150 years time.

Oh, I forget.A Trump presidency is certainly bad news for climate change and the future of the planet...but who gives a shit, right? As long as he makes America great again...like it used to be....

Health care vote delayed. They still need to win over the super duper conservative Freedom Caucus (auto correct keeps wanting to call it couscous). Despite defunding Medicaid, bouncing millions off insurance, and giving a big fat rebate to the wealthiest, it's still not shitty enough for them. Trumps absolute indifference and ignorance of the content of this cobbled together health bill is quite something.

Oh, and in the wake of yesterdays terrorist attack, Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins got their feet under the table as commentators on Fox News and metaphorically looted the battlefield. Farage is not a man ashamed to dip his cock in the puddles of blood.